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Establishing a Network of pFab Innovators

Thursday, 25 August 2011

The Fabrication organization at NASA
Langley Research Center (LaRC) is
in the process of establishing a personal
fabrication (pFab) lab for innovators to
build quick and economical (plastic)
parts and hardware with 3D desktop personal
fabricators. The fabricators are low
cost and designed to be modifiable and
hackable. Recently, several of these economical
fabricators were purchased, and
upgrades have been made to enhance
the performance, including:
• Installation of safety cutoff switches to
turn off the heater circuit and prevent
the cartridge heater from overheating.
• Interface board to independently
operate the fabricator through an SD
card so that a computer is not necessary
to build a part.
• Installation of an automated heated
build platform so that multiple
objects can be printed consecutively
without a person having to reload the
drawing files.

Technology Needs

NASA LaRC is interested in putting
together a 3D personal fabrication
group where information about
upgrades, modifications, improvements,
and questions can be shared to rapidly
communicate information among interested
users. Some of the topics that
NASA LaRC is interested in exploring
include creating higher-fidelity parts,
post-processing of printed parts to
improve the surface appearance, and
increasing the speed at which parts can
be printed without compromising the
fidelity. Further, NASA LaRC is also
interested in printing with space-qualified
materials and in-space manufacturing
with these systems.

Along with low-cost 3D printers,
NASA LaRC is interested in learning of
any new low-cost equipment developments
on the horizon to further
enhance and expand personal fabrication
capabilities to the masses, such as
low-cost systems that can directly print
metals, ceramics, and/or combinations
of these materials.

Technology Challenges

Technology challenges faced by
NASA LaRC include improving the
quality/fidelity of printed parts through
economical means, possibly by either
modifying the fabricator or developing
post-processing techniques void of high
labor costs (hand work) and/or environmental
issues (chemicals), as shown
in Figure 1. NASA LaRC is also looking
to develop novel, low-cost fabrication
systems to print fully instrumented
models, as shown in Figure 2.

More Information

For additional information, or to discuss
ideas about this topic, contact Allen Jackson
at 757-864-5258, allen.m.jackson@nasa.
gov; Nancy Holloway at 757-864-7849,
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; or email nasa@
techbriefs.com.

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